


The Nokken

by quiettewandering



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Castiel/Dean Winchester UST, Fluff, Humor, M/M, lots of flirting, maybe a make out sesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiettewandering/pseuds/quiettewandering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Free Will investigate a case of mysterious drownings in Minnesota. Dean investigates why everyone thinks he and Cas are happily married. Cas investigates how to get Dean to face the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nokken

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from @destielonfire: 'X times that Cas and Dean were mistaken as a married couple, and the one time they weren’t? (it could be ironic and the one time that they are a married couple, people don’t see them as a couple)'  
>  
> 
> _A/N: So, I usually take prompts for drabbles, but this obviously got wildly out of control. I regret none of the fluff or self-indulging sweetness. I blame the cold medicine I was taking while outlining this, the emotional rollercoaster I was riding from the last GoT episode while writing this, the throw-caution-to-the-wind atittude that I had while posting this. So, to Chloe, my muse for this story, I hope you enjoy this :)_

Dean knew it was going to be a hard week.

He rapped the bar counter with two sharp taps of his knuckles. “Hey, get me another, will ya?” The bartender on duty lazily sloshed more whiskey into his tumbler.

Dean was already feeling the buzz in his head due to an empty stomach. Sam had found a case a few hours earlier, all the way in freakin’ Rosemount, Minnesota, and Dean needed to blow off steam before staying stuck in a car with his brother and Cas for eight and a half hours. He scanned the bar to find someone cute and blonde to help him forget his problems.

Target acquired at 2:00. Short denim skirt, generous chest, long chestnut hair that cascaded down her shoulders. Really nice blue eyes.

Score.

Liquor in hand, Dean sauntered over to her, cocky smile already forming on his face. “What are you having?” he purred, leaning against the counter where she sat. Her response was a lavishing smile.

Oh, yeah. Still got it, Winchester.

After a good ten minutes of flirting, Dean ventured to lean into her space enough to trail a hand seductively up her arm. “What do you say we get out of here,” he murmured into her ear, “and-”

“Dean,” a voice interrupted.

Dean whirled around to greet his cockblock. “Cas,” he groaned. He was right behind him, pushing into his personal space, donned in a blue tracksuit that he had insisted on buying one of their recent Walmart trips. Cas’s blue eyes were narrowed at the girl over Dean’s shoulder.

“What’re you doing here?” Dean asked.

“Sam thinks we should leave tonight,” Cas explained. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your...date.” He tilted his head to regard the girl behind Dean.

“Why the hell does he want to leave tonight? The morning is just fine,” Dean grumbled, taking a final swig of his drink and slamming it onto the counter for emphasis.

Lifting a shoulder in a quasi-shrug, Cas said, “I did not ask. I am just relaying the message. And you were not answering your phone.”

A corner of Dean’s lips lifted. “That’s ‘cause I wanted to get away from your stupid ass. You wouldn’t shut up about the origins of spaghetti.”

“It’s an interesting history.”

“Only to you, Cas,” he complained fondly, knocking a shoulder into his. Cas in turn chuckled softly, grabbing onto Dean’s arm so he didn’t fall over. Their smiles mirrored on each other’s faces. Dean’s eyes betrayed him, flickering to the nape of Cas’s neck, to his lips, back to his eyes before saying, “Now beat it. I’ll see ya at home. I’ll get there when I get there.”

Cas nodded solemnly, clasping a hand to Dean’s shoulder. “Good luck on your sexual conquest.”

“Oh my God….” Dean groaned as Cas weaved through the crowded bar toward the exit. He turned in his chair, his attention now hyper focused on the pretty brunette from before, his charm now amped to full watts. “Okay, sugar, where were we?”

“Uh…” The woman watched Cas’s retreating back over Dean’s shoulder. “So do you guys have like a… poly relationship?”

“A what?” Dean blanched.

His ‘sexual conquest’ widened her eyes. “Oh my God, are you cheating on him _right in front of him?_ ” she hissed.

“What in the hell? Cas and I aren’t in a...relationship! Fuck. He’s just a friend.”

“That didn’t seem like just friendship to me.” She shook her head, bouncing off her bar stool. “Okay, I don’t know what this is, but I’m bowing out of it,” she proclaimed, her jacket in her hand as she backed away. “Have a good night… whatever your name was.”

Dean began short-circuiting at the cusps of his mind as her stilettos clopped away. “Cas… relationship… what the… no?” he panicked to the thin air.

It was going to be a hard week.

 

* * *

 

Dean planted his feet on the cracked concrete; squinted up at the towering building before him. He observed the Victorian-style architecture: timelessly moulded windows scattered the face of the building; strong red brick, two sturdy, red-stained wooden doors perched at the top of an ascending staircase. It was delicately landscaped in the front with an assortment of wildflowers. Ivy tripped over itself up and down the front of the building.

“This is an _elementary_ school?” Dean asked Sam behind him, voice laced with disbelief.

“Yup. Elmo Lake Elementary.” Sam climbed out of the Impala, adjusting his thinly knotted blue tie. He strode up to Dean’s side as Cas maneuvered his way out of the car behind them.

“And we have to interview _kids_?”

“They’re the only ones that saw the...whatever it was during their recess,” Sam explained. He fished out his pocket notebook. “It was… Ms. Liz’s afternoon kindergarten class that saw it. Since there was an employee of the restaurant across the lake that drowned under suspicious circumstances a week ago, I think that whatever they saw might have been responsible.”

Dean let out a sigh. He turned to regard Cas, who stared back at him through the messy mop of his dark hair. Dean made a mental note to get the dude a haircut. Dean brushed the hair back from Cas’s face and straightened the lapels of his suit jacket.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” he said, beginning the journey up the stairs.

“You and Cas go ahead,” Sam called to him as he nudged Cas in Dean’s direction. “I’m going to check out where they might have seen the, uh...lake monster, as they called it.”

Dean waited at the top of the steps for Cas before yanking open the double-paned door to the Waldorf elementary school.

Dean lost Cas as soon as they walked through the doors to the elementary school. One minute the he was by Dean’s side, awkwardly adjusting his backwards tie, and the next moment he was gone.

Dean whirled around, looking down the long hallway. “Cas!” he hissed.

“Over here, Dean.”

He found him staring at the pastel-colored papers tacked to the walls by the entrance. Cas was staring at a particular obnoxiously disproportioned horse standing next to a purple stick girl. “Is this how children perceive the world?” he asked in wonder.

Grabbing his friend by the--nicely toned but Dean is totally not thinking about that--bicep, he led him down the rest of the hallway to the admissions office tucked into a corner. “No, kids are just not coordinated with a marker in their hand.” As they walked through the door, Dean chuckled. “You should have seen Sammy’s art when he was little. Man, that was ugly.”

Cas’s lips lifted into a small smile. He liked it when Dean described the brothers’ childhood--no matter how lonely and scary it could have sometimes been.

The office was a sharp contrast to the rest of the muggy old building, crisp and cool from an air-conditioning unit sitting on an open windowsill. A woman was sitting behind a desk with a tall counter, one that had colorful paperclips and brochures asking: _Is your child healthy?’_ Her smile was sunny and her glasses pink. “Hi, can I help you?” she chirped.

Dean gestured between him and Cas, who was picking at his tie again. “Hi, we’re here to look into some matters, we need to find--” He paused, not knowing what to say without sounding like a child molester. They don’t normally interrogate children, much less in a children’s school. _We need to find some kids_ doesn’t sound very promising. “We need to, well--there’s a classroom where--” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cas fumbling to get his fake FBI badge out of his pocket. Oh yeah, be a fake FBI agent, that’s what they’re here for--

“You’re here for one of your kids?” she clarified, smile somehow widening further.

“ _My_ kid? Oh, uh--no, not my kid specifically--”

“Ohh, you two adopted, I assume,” she said, nodding very seriously. “I understand. It takes a while to think of them as specifically ‘yours’. My husband and I, we adopted too--it’s hard at first but it gets better!” She looked between Dean and Cas, face plastered in a smile again. “And you two seem like a really sweet couple!”

Dean raised his hands in front of him, “Oh we’re not--no that’s--no, he’s just my partner.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cas tilting his head, squinting at Dean in confusion.

She nodded slowly. “Well, I kind of assumed that…”

Dean’s brain malfunctioned as he realized what ‘partner’ implied in this situation. “No, damnit--not _that_ kind of partner--”

“Hello, agents,” broke in a voice, a voice that belonged to a person that Dean very much appreciated right then and there.

Sam, you perfect god of perfect timing _,_ he almost said. “Agent,” he greeted instead, voice dropping a few pitches lower than before.

The school’s secretary leaned over the counter and whispered theatrically to Dean, “Oh, _that_ kind of partner.”

Dean nodded, still blushing, getting out his FBI badge for proof. Beside him, Cas had given up even trying to get out his fake identification, and went back to adjusting his uncomfortable suit instead.

“I’m Agent Smalls, these are my partners, agents Hubbins and Tufnel. We’re here to talk to Ms. Liz’s class about whatever they saw in the lake,” Sam explained, decidedly ignoring the awkward tension that he walked into. “If you could point us where to go, that would be great.”

Dean stared at Sam giving the woman his patented charming smile, chatting away with her and making her feel more at ease. He didn’t hear any of it. His mind was still digesting the fact that she thought Dean and Cas were... _partners._

“Dean?”

He blinked down at Cas, realizing that Sam and the secretary had just walked out the door. He absentmindedly appreciated her nice butt that rounded out her tight pencil skirt.

“Uh… right,” he mumbled, pushing past the former angel and following Sam down the hallway.

When the secretary opened the door to the classroom, it was… in a word, loud. Dean noticed when they walked into the building that it was one of those modern-teaching schools that Americans borrowed from Europe, one that apparently encouraged free play in the afternoon. Some children were splattering paints on a large canvas at a table; some were nestled in their respective corners with books; some were crafting lego masterpieces.

Dean blanched at the fact that they would have to talk to these kids. When he looked over at Cas, his expression said the same. Dean had to chuckle at that; Castiel, former angel of the Lord, terrified of children.

A small brunette in her early twenties pushed her way through the crowd of excited children, extending her hand. “Hi, hi!” she greeted. “I’m Ms. Liz. Are you the agent I talked to on the phone?” This question was directed toward Sam as she shook his hand with an uncomfortably floppy wrist. 

“Yes, I am. We were hoping to talk to your students about what they saw during recess on Friday. It could be connected to our investigation.”

“Well, I will warn you now, it’s hard to get the kids to settle during this hour. It’s a time where they can just have free reign to be creative--and they don’t always listen to adults during that time,” she finished with a fond smile in the direction of the kids. “But if you wait until about two o’clock, that’s when the parents will be picking them up, and many of them expressed feeling more comfortable about interviews happening when they’re present.”

Sam conceded with a nod, “We don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. We’ll just wait outside until you’re ready.”

Dean, Sam, and Cas took a seat on a bench in the hallway. It had bees and flowers painted on it, which Cas seemed to like, if how he was staring at down at the designs and tracing a finger was anything to go by.

“This is a waste of time," Sam sighed, elbows on his knees as he hunched toward the floor. “We should just investigate the body, do research, that kind of thing. We don’t really interview kids. What could they possibly know?”

“They’re the only ones that saw whatever-it-was in the lake, Sammy,” Dean explained while brushing imaginary dirt off his knee. “And kids are the most honest ones we can possibly interview. We’ll get the whole story. It may be a little chaotic, but… we can just reseach whatever we find from them afterwards.”

“I am happy to do the research now,” Cas quickly said from the other end of the bench.

“What’s the matter Cas, don’t like kids?” Dean grinned, playfully pushing a shoulder into his friend.

“Children are ‘cute’, as most people say, but difficult to handle,” he replied. “I’d rather not try.

Stray parents began to file down the hall and disappear into the classroom next to them. Dean pulled back his sleeve to check his watch. “1:55,” he announced, slapping his palms to his knees and rising. “Let’s go back in.”

The faux-FBI team perched themselves against the colorful walls in the back of the classroom as Ms. Liz explained the situation to the parents. She extended a hand back to Dean, Sam, and Cas as she reiterated that the agents were highly trained interviewers and knew how to ask questions to the children without traumatizing them. Cas opened his mouth, undoubtedly to argue with the implications behind the description ‘professional interviewers’ that they most certainly weren’t, but was cut short by a sharp jab into his side by Dean’s elbow.

Ms Liz bounced back to join them once the parents grunted agreements to their children’s brains being poked and prodded by the government’s (false) agents. “Okay, gentlemen, they’re all yours! Some of the kids are very shy, so will need to be with a few other kids to bulk up their confidence. I’m assuming that you’ll split up to interview each group?”

“I’ll take Mr. Socially Inept over here,” Dean muttered in Sam’s ear before nodding to Ms. Liz, “Agent Tufnel and I will take the bigger groups of kids. Agent Smalls will take the individuals.”

Dean and Cas wedged themselves into small plastic chairs behind a mini-sized coloring table. Cas smiled fondly down at a picture of a flower messily colored far beyond the thick black outline. In turn, Dean smiled fondly at Cas.

“Okay,” Ms. Liz announced, approaching with her hand on either backs of a boy and girl, both blonde, one with a thumb stubbornly stuck in his mouth, another with a beaming smile on her face. “This is Cassie, and this is Ron. I’ll be right over here, all right guys?” They nodded.

Ron remained standing, eyeing Dean and Cas warily. Cassie plopped into a chair across from the hunters and waved at Cas. He hesitantly raised his arm and returned the wave.

Dean cleared his throat to begin. “Hey...kids, how you doing?”

“Great!” Cassie chimed. Ron stared.

“Now we don’t want to cut too much into your… coloring time, or whatever you do, but can you describe whatever it was you saw in the lake?”

“Well, Ronnie and I were playing on the slides,” Cassie explained, smoothing out her skirt. “We were playing hide and seek. Do you know what that is? It’s when he went and hided, and then I had to count to five and then--”

Dean halted her explanation with a raised palm. “Yeah, kid, we know what hide and seek is.”

Cas, however, leaned forward and quietly asked Cassie, “What happened after you counted to five?”

“Oh my God,” Dean grumbled.

Ron took his thumb out of his mouth to supply, “We saw a big black thing, in the water.”

Dean nodded. “And?”

The boy stuck his thumb right back into his mouth, declining to answer. Dean sighed. Sam was better at this sort of thing, interviewing the shy ones.

Before Dean could think of what to do, Cas was out of his chair and squatting in front of the boy at his eye level, a safe distance away. “Your name is Ron, correct?” the former angel asked, brushing his dark hair from his eyes.

Ron nodded.

“My name is Ca—” Dean cleared his throat. “--Agent...Tufnel. If you could tell us what happened, we would appreciate it.” At Ron’s prolonged silence, Cas added softly, “I know it can be difficult to trust people you have just met. But I promise, we are here to help.”

Dean’s stupid heart skipped a beat when he saw Cas give the boy a gentle smile of reassurance.

It seemed to work. Ron’s soft voice continued, “It was hairy. Had two eyes. It looked scary.”

“And I told Aaron, who told Sarah, who told Ms. Liz, and we all went over to see it!” Cassie shrieked.

“Did it perform any actions in the water?” Cas asked, eyes on Cassie.

“Huh?”

“Did it do anything?” Dean reiterated. “Did it sit there, say anything, swim around…?”

“It just stared at us!”

“Okay,” Dean sighed. “Thanks for talking, guys.”

“Sure!” Cassie jumped off her chair, taking Ron’s hand to begin guiding him back to their parents. Cas returned to his chair beside Dean. Cassie stopped when Ron took out his thumb from his mouth again to whisper something in her ear. “Hey, misters....” Cas and Dean raised their heads. “Are you guys married?”

“Uh… what.” Dean said as Cas slowly tilted his head.

“Boys can get married, my mom told me,” Ron explained.

“Yeah, I know that, kid, but that doesn’t mean that _all_ dudes are married.”

Cassie pointed at Cas. “But you look at him like my mommy looks at my daddy,” she told Dean.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose as Cas’s face broke into a tiny grin beside him. Ms. Liz snickered behind her hand. “No, kid, we’re not married.”

Cassie shrugged. “If you say so!” She turned, wawalked away with Ron in tow.

Despite Dean’s denial, rumor got around the classroom that Dean and Cas were very much married. To every question Dean and Cas asked the subsequent groups of kids, they were met with a barraga barrage of questions:

“How long you guys been married?” and “Do you have a dog?” and “Do you love each other?” and “What are your favorite colors?”

“Please, for the love of everything that is holy, tell me that you have some info on this damn case,” Dean hissed to Sam a gruelling hour later.

Sam smiled serenely at his older brother. “What, you and Cas aren’t getting any information?”

“No! You know why? Because apparently we’re goddamn married, and that’s all these kids have on their mind.”

“Perhaps children are receptive to our deeply rooted bond,” Cas mused, hands clasped behind him in thought.

Dean threw up his arms. “Dude, _not_ helping.” He forced his face into a polite smile as a group of parents approached them.

“We want to thank you, agents, for investigating this,” said a parent clad in an argyle sweater. “And for being so patient with questioning our kids.”

“Not a problem, ma’am,” Sam assured.

“And sorry for all the questions the kids are giving you two,” a dad laughed in Cas and Dean’s direction. “I mean, it’s not every day the kids meet married FBI agents! We’re always telling our kids to--”

“We’re not married,” Dean interrupted with gritted teeth.

The parents blinked confusedly, somehow this information not computing.

“We’re just partners. FBI partners.”

More confused glances with a lingering uncomfortable silence.

“Well, I’m going,” Dean announced a little too loudly, shouldering past them toward the door.

 

* * *

 

His face still felt red even as they sat in the diner for a quick dinner. Sam relayed the information he had collected from his group of undistracted kindergarteners.

“So they all said pretty much the same thing: weird creature in the lake, looking at them with eyes, but under a flock of feathers, or fur, or something? And it just sat there, for a few minutes--Liz said that once she noticed the kids looking at the lake, whatever it was had gone. Cas, does this sound like anything you recognize?”

Cas gave a negative shake of his head as he eyed Dean’s french fries. His own had been demolished minutes ago. “It may be a water spirit of some sort. Or a ghost attached to the lake.”

“I think we should go back tonight, scope it out,” Dean said. He popped a group of greasy french fries into his mouth. “Take the EMF reader, see if we can pick anything up--hey!” He slapped Cas’s hand as it reached toward his plate.

Cas, in turn, woundedly brought his hand back to his chest. He stared at Dean with sorrowful eyes until Dean grumbled, “Fine,” sliding the plate in his direction.

“Is that all for you guys?” said their waitress as she bounced up to their table.

“Piece of apple pie, darlin’,” Dean winked. He backhanded Cas on the wrist as he reached for another fry.

Sam frowned at his laptop screen. “I won’t know until we see it… but I found a list of water spirits that are known for hanging out in lakes. It could be any of these. We’ll just have to figure it out when we see it. Most of them are harmless, but this one sure isn’t, based on the gas station attendant it killed. And we don’t want it hurting the kids.”

Their waitress deposited the piece of pie in front of Dean. He enthusiastically dug in, nodding in assent with Sam. “Yeah, good plan.” He pulled his plate out of Cas’s reach when he noticed his friend reaching toward his plate with a fork.

“I mean it could be a ghost...but what would be tying it to the lake? Maybe we should check out that restaurant

that’s across the road from the lake, where that victim worked… maybe it pissed it off somehow?” Sam looked up to see Dean holding the pie out of Cas’s reach with one hand, pushing against Cas’s forehead with the other. “Guys!”

They barely paid attention. “Cas, get your own damn pie if you wanted it so bad!” Dean barked.

“I like the look of yours,” Cas all but whined.

“Fine, just, fine, son of a bitch,” Dean relented, slamming the plate on the table. “Here. You happy?”

Cas nodded, taking a bite and peering innocently at Dean over his fork.

Dean huffed and maneuvered his fork around Cas’s to scoop up another chunk of pie. “Dammit, Cas.”

Their waitress once again materialized in front of them. “Can I get you boys anything else, beside the bill?”

Sam told her, “Just the bill is fine.”

“And how should I split it? I’m assuming you two will be sharin’,” the waitress winked at Dean and Cas.

“Yes, we usually share.”

“Stealing my damn pie isn’t sharing, Cas.”

The waitress grinned, ripping the receipt from her small notebook and placing it on the table. “You two bicker just like my sister and her husband. So cute.”

Dean threw up his hands, dropping against the backboard of the booth. “What the hell is going on?” he asked a snickering Sam.

 

* * *

 

It was close to one in the morning as the threesome made their way down to the lake’s shore. It was a man-made lake, with a circumference no more than a mile around. Trees were scattered in close proximity to the dark water. The school had a chain link fence separating the playground from the lake. Dean and Sam easily jumped over it; Cas, still acquiring his bearings as a human, got his pant leg snagged on the top of the fence and flopped onto his back unceremoniously over the side.

EMF readings showed high paranormal activity on the north side of the lake; the brothers and Cas sat close to the shore, waiting for the ghost, spirit, whatever, to show. A few hours into their wait, Cas abruptly stood.

“I see something,” was all he said before sprinting toward the water.

“Cas! Dammit, Cas, get back here!” Dean ran after him as Sam readied his shot gun.

Dean saw Cas splash into the water, then disappear with a snap underneath the surface.

“Cas!”

“Dean!” Sam called. He whipped around to catch the sheathed knife that Sam threw towards him. Whipping it from its protective casing, Dean wadded further away from shore, one arm wildly searching for purchase in the water as he held the knife defensively before him.

“Over there!” Sam yelled, shining his flashlight toward the middle of the lake.

After squinting into the dark, Dean’s eyes adjusted to see a sandbank a few yards away, and a lump of something laying on it. He wasted no time in swimming toward it, spirit monster thing in the water be damned.

He reached the sandbank and saw Cas’s mop of hair covering his still face. “Cas, buddy, c’mon,” he encouraged, gathering Cas into his lap and slapping at his cheeks. His breath caught when he noticed the dark substance matted on one side of Cas’s head, dripping onto the light sand underneath them.

“Dean…” Cas murmured, eyes flickering, searching for Dean. Blue locked with green. “Dean, it’s a spirit. And it’s angry.”

“Yeah, you’re damn right it’s angry. Can you get up?”

“I’ll try.”

Dean grabbed onto both of Cas’s shoulders. Both men scrambled to their feet. Dean peered into the dark water. “We’re going to have to swim for it,” he said.

“Dean--”

“Sam will cover us,” Dean cut in, beginning his descent back into the water. “We need to get back to shore.”

No sooner did they beginning swimming through the icy depths, Dean felt something wrap around his feet and drag him below the surface. He blindly slashed his knife at whatever it was, metal hitting something soft, and was aware of the weight dragging him down suddenly release. He felt Cas grabbing the hem of his shirt, lifting his head up back into the air, dragging him toward the shore.

They reached Sam, clothes dripping and chests heaving. “It’s a water spirit of some sort,” Cas explained breathlessly. “We need to leave, now. It’s powerful.”

“So then why the hell did you run into the damn water, Cas?” Dean shouted as they trudged distance between them and the lake. “Is your damn brain broken?”

“It’s of no consequence.” After Dean glared at him for a beat, Cas conceded, “I saw someone in distress. It was a hallucination.”

“You’re bleeding. We need to get you back to the motel and take care of that,” Sam added softly.

Dean grabbed Cas’s arm once they made it back to the Impala, whirling him around to face him. He jabbed a finger into his face. “This isn’t over,” he warned.

 

* * *

 

It was quiet for a total of ten minutes in the motel before Dean finally snapped.

“What in the hell were you thinking?” He stopped tending to Cas’s head wound (not deep enough to warrant stitches) and pushed him back on the bed. “You wanna give us a little warning next time you have a freakin’ deathwish?”

Cas stared up at him, eyes wide and unblinking. “I could sense the spirit. It was angry, and was leading me to him through a hallucination. And I knew that if I was closer to the spirit, it could explain--”

“Explain?!”

“Let me finish,” Cas grounded out. “It is angry, at something happening to the lake. If we can figure out what it is--”

“Dammit, Cas, maybe give us a little damn _insight_ before you run into your death?”

“Dean, I’m not a child!” Cas finally roared, rising to his feet and throwing the phone in his hand to the ground for emphasis. They both glared at each other, neither willing to back down.

Sam’s a smart guy. He knows when to flee a room. So he did just that, muttering he would pick up Chinese food, grabbing his coat. He shut the motel room door behind him.

“Dean,” Cas began, “I--”

“You aren’t an angel anymore,” Dean spat out. “You can just _do_ whatever you want. There’s consequences, Cas. Like, I don’t know, _death_ ?”  
This seemed to bristle Cas, his spine straightening to stand taller. “You and Sam face danger every day. There’s no reason why I have to sit on the sidelines, when neither do you.”

“Sam and I don’t offer up ourselves as damn monster bait! Not without some kind of plan. You just went and did whatever the hell you wanted.” Remembering seeing Cas getting flung into the water, remembering how much the water had diluted the blood around him as he held Cas on that sandbank, remembering how unresponsive Cas was in the first moments Dean found him, made him really need a drink. He stomped to the motel’s sad excuse for a kitchenette and violently poured whisky into an old coffee mug.

After downing a finger of it in a quick gulp, he turned to find Cas still looking at him, eyebrows knitted in a frown. “You could have died,” he reiterated. “I’m not losing you.”

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Cas rumbled, glaring down at the ground.

With a sharp nod, Dean flopped back onto the bed across from Cas. “Good.”

There was a short silence before he heard, “Dean…”

“Yeah, Cas?” he sighed, rubbing two fingers against the side of his forehead.

“Why do you become upset when people assume we are romantically involved?”

Dean snorted. What a question. One that he couldn’t easily answer; well, not without really searching his feelings, which were usually off the radar. Why did he get upset? Whenever people assumed him and Sam were a couple, he laughed it off. Even leaned into the curve of the joke. Because it was ridiculous; he and Sam are brothers. Being gay for each other was never going to happen, because he didn’t want it to happen. But, with Cas…

“Dean?” Cas prompted, when the silence became too thick.

“Uh…” Dean toyed with his coffee mug. It was empty. He needed more whiskey for this. “Well, I guess it’s because...I just don’t understand why people see it that way. It’s stupid.”

He could feel Cas physically deflate across from him. “You don’t wish to be seen as being in a relationship with a man,” he said softly.

“No, that’s not it, Cas. Gender isn’t the issue. It never was,” he admitted as an afterthought. He shut his mouth with a snap so as to not speak further.

“Then I don’t understand.”

Dean rose, going back to the whiskey, his only lifeline. He clutched the neck of the bottle as he gritted out, “Because it can never happen.”

He heard Cas rising from the bed, the mattress squeaking a breath from the sudden lightness. “Why?” was his soft question.

“It’s...Sammy and I…” He exhaled sharply through his nose. The bottle’s glass neck rapped against the lid of the mug sharply as he poured in an unmeasured amount of whiskey. Taking a strong sip of liquid courage, he tried again. “Sammy and I: we’re hunters. We don’t get to. It’s not part of the life.”

He ignored the fear of the unknown that was rising in his throat. He knew there were feelings between him and Cas--it was hard not to see those damn heart eyes looking at him whenever they were at a pinnacle moment. But it was never talked about before now. People didn’t start assuming things until Cas began joining them on their hunts. Since Cas became human, Dean had been mindlessly flirting, touching Cas more than he needed to, let himself operate under the delusion that he could have Cas by his side the rest of his life, in a different way than Sam was.  

His thoughts were interrupted when Dean felt careful fingers stroking patterns into his back. He shivered under Cas’s touch.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Cas said right by his ear, in that stupid, gravelly voice that always grated on Dean’s nerves--

Screw it.

Dean slammed the mug of whiskey down on the table and spun around to face Cas. Like everything he did in life, fell face-first into his decision, deciding to deal with the consequences later. His whole body sang when he felt Cas’s firm lips against his, his mind bursting with color behind his closed eyes. Now that he had Cas, he wasn’t letting go. He ran his fingers roughly through Cas’s hair, his other hand fitting against the small of Cas’s back and pulling him closer.

He felt Cas mould into him easily, pliant underneath his arms, his hands becoming brave enough to trail up and down Dean’s back, grab at his hair, to hold Dean’s face firmly as he deepened the kiss. Dean let out an inevitable groan and pushed Cas backward, their legs hitting the bed, their bodies falling into each other on the mattress.

He took a moment to break away from Cas, staring down at him lying prone beneath Dean, mouth and eyes wide open, completely taken aback by this turn of events. “Dean?” Cas whispered, as if not wanting to break whatever spell they were in.

Dean just sat there, legs bracketing Cas on either side, staring down at his friend--well, shit, more than a friend now. He never let himself realize how handsome Cas was: full lips, eyes that crinkled at the corner when he smiled, and those blue eyes, God--

“Dean,” Cas said again, his voice almost a growl. “Come here.” He grabbed the back of Dean’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss again. He didn’t want to let go either.

“I saw you,” Cas admitted between their open, chaste kisses. “The spirit, it made me...hallucinate you getting hurt.” He gently ran a hand down Dean’s neck, causing him to shudder. “It knew I cared about you, thought we were connected, and used that against me. Even though a part of me knew you were right beside me, unharmed, I had to run to you.”

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean sighed against Cas’s lips. “Even the damn water spirit thought we were in a relationship.”

“Perhaps it’s time to remedy the fact that we aren’t,” Cas offered, drawing Dean in once again.

Dean allowed himself to again get lost in the feel of Cas’s lips against his, the feel of Cas grabbing him close against his body, the singing warmth that was being exchanged between them.

But Dean was never one to get lost for long.

He intercepted Cas’s wrists as they went to hold his face again. “Cas…” he murmured against his lips. “Hey, Cas, let’s stop for a sec.”

Cas looked very frustrated to be interrupted from his task again. “Yes, Dean?”

“We can’t, Cas. We can’t.”

Cas blinked. “Can’t do this? Why not?”

“I told you before. This ain’t a good idea.” Dean felt anger swell in his chest like a manic balloon; why did he let himself go like this? Years of shoving it down, ignoring it, all for a few minutes of passion due to a crazy, lust-infused electricity that blew a gasket in Dean’s brain. He rolled off of Cas, the warmth leaving him, sitting down on the opposite bed. He ran his fingers through his hair. “We can’t do that again.”

Cas leaned forward toward him, hand outstretched. “Dean--”

“Quit it, Cas!” He stood up, creating as much distance between them as possible. “I said no!”

Dean registered the broken and scared look in Cas’s face that was quickly replaced by indignant anger. “If that’s your decision, Dean,” he growled. The front door slammed loudly back into its frame as he stormed away.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sam registered the awkwardness that had grown between Cas and Dean from the previous night. He was determinedly cheerful and talkative as Dean and Cas sulked in their respective corners of the car. Sam suggested they stop at a gas station before scoping out the lake again.

While Sam filled up the Impala’s tank, Dean got them a hearty breakfast. He threw a package of beef jerky and a stick of gum on the checkout counter. “And three coffees,” he grunted, voice rough from lack of sleep and an avenging hangover.

The gas station attendant--pimply, skinny boy of no more than sixteen--nodded slowly and rang up the items while Dean yanked out a ten dollar bill from his wallet.

“Uh, sir,” the boy said.

Dean looked up.

“Your boyfriend over there is going to break the machine.”

Dean glanced over at the coffee machines at the far end of the gas station, where Cas was attempting to pour coffee into a styrofoam cup. He had given up and was slapping his palm against the side of the machine to give it a violent wake-up call.

Dean sharply turned his attention back to the gas attendant. He abruptly clenched the front of the kid’s shirt, yanking him down toward his face to hiss, “He is _not_ my boyfriend. Got that?”

The attendant held up his hands. “Fine, whatever man, just get him to stop breaking Gas n’ Sip property.”

Throwing the ten dollar bill aimlessly into the air, not waiting to collect the change, Dean scooped up his items. He intercepted Cas’s arm mid-swing, pushed him aside, and flipped a little black lever. Steaming coffee began pouring innocently into the cup. Cas observed it dumbfoundedly. “How did you do that?”

Dean grunted something nonsensical and went to join Sam by the Impala. “What’s the plan?” he demanded. Dean was eager to return to the bunker and hang out with Jack, Jim, and Jose for the foreseeable future.

“We need to figure out what’s pissing the spirit off enough to kill people,” Sam said without looking up from his iPhone. “I’ve been doing some research based on what Cas called it. From the looks of it, and how it lured Cas in, it’s definitely a Nokken.”

“A Nokia?”

Sam raised his eyes to find patience in the cloudy sky above him. “A _Nokken._ Prominent in Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. They reside in mostly lakes; during the day, they can be spotted on the surface, but only the top of their heads and their eyes--” he showed a picture of a dark, red-eyed creature via his Google search, earning a grimace from Dean, “--and by night, they become attractive men to lure women into the water. This one seemed like it upgraded, though. In Cas’s case, it seemed like he saw someone or something in trouble.”

Dean shrugged with little commitment behind it. “Or something,” he agreed, remembering Cas’s whispered confession to him as they were tangled together the night before.

“There haven’t been too many reportings of spirits like this dragging people into lakes, so my theory is that something is making it mad.” Sam saw Cas emerge from the door of the gas station, balancing three coffees in a triangle between his hands. He pocketed his phone and opened the passenger door. “It can’t be the school; so I think we need to watch the restaurant across the lake.”

 

* * *

 

During Dean’s drive back to the school, Sam called the secretary to let her know that they would be staking out at the fence by the school’s playground. This was a precaution, so that no one would panic about the fact that three grown men were loitering by elementary school students.

Hours later, they leaned against the chainlink fence, facing the lake. Cas sipped his coffee in silence as Sam rambled off more facts about the Nokken myth to Dean. It was recess for the kindergarteners behind them. Children’s laughter and quick footsteps scattered behind them.

“Hey, mister!”

Dean turned to regard the short blonde on the other side of the fence. One of the kids from Ms. Liz’s class. “Hey...kid,” he said. He had completely forgotten his name.

Cas, on Dean’s right, squatted down butt-to-ankles to the boy’s eye level and greeted him with a smile. Unlike Dean, he remembered the boy from their interviews. “Hello, Aaron.”

“Hi Mister Cas!” Aaron chirped back.

Dean would have to lecture Cas later on not giving out his real name during hunts.

“What are you doing here?” Aaron asked.

“We are investigating,” Cas replied cheerfully as Dean grunted, “Official business, and none of yours.”

“Cool!” Aaron squealed. A few other kids had sprinted toward them and were arriving in a flurry cloud of woodchips. “Can we help?”

Cas shook his head. “It’s official BFI--”

“FBI,” Dean piped in.

“--FBI business.”

Aaron held the fence in his small hands as he leaned back against his heels. “That’s cool.”

A small girl hesitantly came up to the front of the crowd. She squinted and tilted her head in an eery Cas-like manner. “You and him were the boy couple.” To eliminate any confusion as to who she was talking about, she pointed a solitary finger at Dean.

Dean groaned and hit the back of his head against the fence.  

Sam, the traitor, threw his head back and laughed forcefully.

“Did you find the monster?” Aaron inquired.

“We did,” Cas nodded. “He is a water spirit. A Nokken.”

“A… No…Nok...” Aaron tried.

“Don’t hurt yourself, kid,” Dean snorted.

Cas pushed a hand against Sam’s shoulder to gain his attention. “Look, Sam, that man is littering.” He pointed a finger to a figure on the other side of the lake. They both watched as the man, cigarette caught between his lips, threw two bags of trash into the lake unceremoniously. The trash slowly sank beneath the water.

“If I were a water spirit, I’d be angry at that,” Sam mused.

“We should talk to him,” Cas offered. “Threaten him so that he doesn’t litter anymore.”

“Okay. Dean, stay with the kids, we’re going over there.”

“Wait--why?”

“Because you’re great with kids.” Sam smiled sweetly, walking away in Cas’s wake.

“Great,” Dean muttered. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and attempted to shrink in the ground away from the kids crowding behind his back.

There was a blessed moment where all the kids seemed to do was murmur amongst themselves. Dean braced himself, knowing the silence wouldn’t last.

“Can I ask you something?” a girl behind him demanded.

Yup, there it is. “What?” sighed Dean.

“We wanna know why you and Mr. Cas are married.”

“We’re _not_ married.”

“Huh?”

“We’re not married!”

The kids gave each other glances. “We don’t believe that,” Aaron reported.

“Yeah,” piped in a girl that Dean now recognized as Cassie. “And my mommy said that you are probably keeping a secret, so the BFI--”

“FBI,” groaned Dean.

“So the _BFI_ ,” Cassie insisted, “don’t know that you are married.”

Dean decided to kick this curse to the curb while he could. It’s like the universe was pointing a finger at him and laughing at the great joke that was Dean Winchester’s love life. Jeering at him for the fact that he couldn’t be with Cas. “Listen,” he began, holding up his hands to cut off the chatter. “Cas and I, we ain’t in a relationship. We can’t be.”

“Why?” Cassie asked.

“Okay, well, just because. Sometimes in life things don’t work out. And in this situation it won’t work out.”

“Why?”

“Because. Some things aren’t meant to be.”

“Why?”

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh my God.”

 

* * *

 

Cas and Sam returned to find Dean deflecting every question he could about him and Cas’s non-existent relationship. “Talked to the trash guy,” Sam said. “Owner of the restaurant. He was evading taxes by having less trash, so he wouldn’t have to get a bigger bin. After we threatened arresting him if he did it again, I don’t think he’ll be doing it anymore.”

“So that’s it?” Dean asked. “That seems too easy.”

“It is too easy,” Sam agreed. “According to legend, we also have to throw a blessed silver cross into the lake with an incantation I found.”

“And Sam and I decided that we will clean the lake of whatever trash we can,” Cas added. “That way we know the spirit is truly at rest.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass,” Dean grunted, kicking a rock near his shoe rather than meeting Cas’s eyes. For some reason, that stupid question the damn kids kept repeating was nagging the back of his brain: _Why?_

“It will be,” Sam assured him. “But it’s necessary if we’re going to avoid more deaths.”

Dean nodded, absentmindedly following Sam and Cas back to the Impala.

He knew that the life of a hunter didn’t leave room for romance or companionship. That the life of a hunter didn’t last very long. That he couldn’t really risk a relationship with Cas.

_Why?_

 

* * *

 

 

An hour later Dean found himself wading through the water after Sam’s quick “throw in the silver cross and hope for the best” ritual, fishing for junk to throw into his large trash bag. Later into the afternoon, parents began picking up their children and, seeing the men tirelessly working to clean the lake, they soon had a crowd of people joining in.

Parents joked with each other and the (fake) FBI agents as they cleaned. Someone brought sandwiches. Their kids ran around mindlessly and chaotically on the beach.

After they did all they could, realistically, the crowd of them pulled picnic benches together and dove into the sandwiches, chips, and juice boxes that some concerned mother had brought for everyone. Sam, always the charmer, made friends with practically all the parents, and of course got the attention of a single mother of three boys.

Dean opted to sit on the beach, offset from the crowd, glaring out into the sky as the sun was setting.

He felt a rustle as someone sat down beside him. “Hello, Dean,” said Cas, biting off the top of an egg salad sandwich.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. “Uh...hey, Cas.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Dean didn’t think of it as silence at all due to the rushing thoughts in his head. Would Cas want to leave their team, now that Dean has rejected him? Does he even want to reject Cas? Why-- _Why?--_ did he reject him in the first place? He just panicked, threw the situation out of the door before it got out of hand, why did--

“Dean,” Cas interrupted. “I think we need to have a talk.”

“Y-Yeah...talk.” Dean stubbornly focused on a piece of green glass lying at his feet in the sand.

Considering his hands for a moment, Cas began, “I was angry, at first, about the way you handled our altercation last night. But I’ve had time to think, and I understand.”

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that, Cas?” Dean scoffed.

Cas regarded him with accusing eyes. “Of all the monsters that you face, Dean, this is one that is most terrifying to you. Truly being in a relationship with anyone.”

“Yeah, okay, Cas, don’t Dr. Phil me, I’m not--”

“Listen to me,” Cas practically growled, grabbing Dean’s wrist before he turned away. “I am not going anywhere. I am human now, and by your side, Dean. Whether you want to call it a relationship or not, by your standards, I love you.”

“Cas, c’mon--”

“I love you.”

“Stop saying that, Cas--”

“I love you and nothing you can say will make me stop.”

“Cas!” Dean roared. A few of the parents turned their heads. Cas kept staring at him calmly, undeterred by his outburst. Dean huffed angrily, scrubbing his face with a hand. “Okay, I get it. I get it, you stubborn, obstinate angel.”

Cas took another bite of his sandwich. “Technically, Dean, I am a human.”

“You’ll always be an angel to me.” It slipped out before Dean could stop it.

Cas turned his head to look at Dean. His smile was soft as he said, “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes flickered down to Cas’s full, chapped lips before his eyes kept trailing down Cas’s well-built chest and legs and, dammit, he knew that whether he liked it or not, he was doomed to fall into this rabbit hole of a relationship. Sam would have to just check into a different room that night while Dean faces the inevitable reality of his feelings for Cas.

A group of giggling kids bounded up to them. The group that was questioning Dean at the fence earlier. “Hi Cas!” they chimed happily.

Cas gave them a shy smile, and a little wave. “Hello.”

Maybe Dean was reeling from the spoken confession that Cas loved him. Maybe he was feeling braver against his internal monsters. Maybe he just really wanted to make Cas happy so that he could get laid that night. Whatever it was, it caused him to wrap an arm around Cas’s shoulders and pull him in close. “Hey, guess what guys,” he told the group of kids with a conspiring smile. “You were right. We are in a relationship.”

The group of children regarded each other with skeptical smiles on their faces. One of them giggled out, “No you’re not!” This dissolved the rest of the group into fits of laughter. They began running wildly around the beach, screaming “Not true, not true!”

Dean grumbled, “I just can’t win.”

Cas laughed lightly beside him, pulling him in for a soft kiss onto his forehead. Dean opted to keep his arm around Cas’s shoulders. They sat there quietly, contentedly, until the sun dipped behind the shore.

Dean pressed a small kiss on the side of Cas’s forehead. “Wanna go home, Cas?” he asked.

“Of course, Dean.”

**Author's Note:**

> _A/N: Bonus points if you can figure out where the names the boys used as agent names are from (WITHOUT GOOGLING GUYS OK). Please let me know what you liked in the comments, what worked for you etc, and as always thank you for reading!_


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